But even with the frequently used hashtags, photos shared on
Twitter and Instagram aren't easily searchable. They're not
organized in any fashion; once they're far down the feed, they're
essentially lost forever.

Swirl is a new iPhone app that's being rolled out by Betaworks today. Its founder, UX designer
Summer Bedard, has been working on it for six months.

The moment you download the app, Swirl starts organizing your
shared Twitter and Instagram pictures into hashtag-based photo
albums. If other people use the same hashtag for their pictures,
their images will appear in that Swirl album too. So every
picture with the hashtag #cute, for example, will be aggregated
on a single "cute" Swirl page.

"The reason I wanted to make Swirl is because my friends use the
same tags for weddings, birthdays and other events," says Bedard.
"I kept watching them do it, and I figured there should be
something that just pulls them all together."

Of course, the current app and website have a few problems. If
you search the hashtag
#gorgeous, for example, naked women pop up. Bedard also
acknowledges that Swirl has a "teen girl spam" problem; many
people add numerous hashtags to their photos which can drown out
relevant images.

Swirl does have a few good use cases. Conferences, for example,
can organize photos shared from their events on Swirl.

Before creating Swirl, Bedard worked for Turntable.fm and
StickyBits, as well as for Yahoo. Swirl is the first company she's
founded.

Bedard was connected to Betaworks one year ago. She initially
presented a few different app wire frames; Betaworks was most
excited about Swirl. Bedard got to work, and she's since brought
on some additional employees, including a woman she attended
graduate school with.

Here's what the app looks like. The website, Swirl.us, shows
photos from the entire Twitter and Instagram community. The
mobile app only shows pictures posted by people you follow on the
social networks: